


Love's a B*tch

by BrownBananas



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/F, Neighbors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 20:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13419531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownBananas/pseuds/BrownBananas
Summary: Modern AU, upstairs/downstairs neighbors, let's just see where this one takes us ok?





	1. Chapter 1

Lexa hated the quiet in the evenings.

It had been two months into her “suggested sabbatical” and it already felt like a lifetime. Her apartment felt new even though she had lived in it for three years now. She knew that “lived in” was a little generous, given the short hours she spent in the place, preferring to eat out and spend her time training and tormenting her latest horde of recruits. She was sitting up in bed, covers tossed haphazardly aside, knees bent, eyes closed and rubbing her temples mechanically. She knew her bedside clock read 5:34pm, even though it was 10:17pm. It was blinking at her, meaning the power had gone out and she had to reset the time. She didn’t know when that had happened, probably months ago, because she had grown used to the flashing red in the dimness of the room. She thought it made for a soothing visual rhythm, even though it had rendered the clock useless. Just like her right now.

She opened her eyes, fingers still at her temples, and glanced around the room, her eyes getting used to the dark. Two boxes were still sitting in the corner from when she moved in. A few framed prints and photographs sat on the floor across from her bed, gathering dust around them and waiting to be hung. The place still had that faint smell of a fresh coat of paint. Lexa knew she hadn’t given this place any time, and for the first time since she arrived, she thought maybe she should have.

“This is so sad,” she said in a deadpan voice, to no one.

She clicked the light on from her bedside table, mindlessly looping her finger around the chain and pulling down, illuminating her room in pools of golden light. She winced at the sudden brightness, but smiled at the shadows cast by the lampshade. She’d had it forever. Her mind traveled briefly to the small flea market in D.C. where she and Costia would spend Saturday mornings before the farmer’s market. Her mind flashed an image of Costia in her Roman sandals and sundress, her wild auburn hair, a look over her shoulder and the flash of a smile. Lexa started to feel that tingling pain in her lower jaw that spread through her chest, all the way to her finger tips. She shook her head and cracked her neck, as if to physically shove the memory away. She picked up her book from the nightstand along with her reading glasses and flipped to the chapter where she had left off. She flipped page after page, reading about Catherine the Great, letting herself be wrapped up in the worlds she inhabited, she saw herself in the middle of mist-covered plains, surrounded by snow drifts and castles and carriages.

She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep, until she was woken up with a clang and series of loud metallic clatters, followed by a hushed, but not too hushed, _“fuck!”_ The expletive was followed by more metal clanging, duller now, heavier. Lexa realized that something, or someone, was coming down the fire escape next to her bedroom window.

Lexa glanced at her clock, trying to figure out who the hell could be ripping down the fire escape so goddamn early in the morning. The clock flashed 6:32 pm. Lexa rolled her eyes at herself for forgetting that she had never – and had no intention of – setting the time on that clock. She felt around the covers for her glasses, shoved them on her face and swung her feet over the bed. The hardwood floor cold against the bottoms of her feet, she felt her pajama bottoms drag under her heel. She made her way towards the window, and untangled the drawstring from the windowsill and pulled. The blinds flew upwards revealing a startled blond girl, covered in paint, crouched on the landing.

“Holy shit!” the girl yelled, as one would, when the blind open suddenly from inside an apartment, revealing a scowling stone fox. She staggered backwards and hitting her head against the guardrail. “Ow! Ugh! What the hell.” 

Her eyes were scrunched up in pain and her hand was in her hair, spreading more of the blueish, brownish paint stain onto slightly greasy blonde hair. 

“Christ,” she whispered, mostly to herself.

Lexa stood there, stone-faced but intrigued. The only way you could tell she was concerned for this strange heap of a person on her fire escape was the slight arch of her right eyebrow and the subtle clenching of her jaw. It was a reactionary expression that most misunderstood as dismissiveness but to those who really knew her, it meant an unexpected peak in curiosity. To be frank, and Lexa often was, she kind of liked that the recruits and the other captains couldn't really read her face all that well. She thought it gave her a little bit of power.

“I’m fine by the way,” the girl said, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Thanks for asking.”

Lexa finally opened the window, with some effort, since it probably hadn’t been open in a few, evers.

“Sorry,” Lexa said with a grunt as she lifted the window pane over her head. “What are you doing on my fire escape?”

“I dropped a…” the girl started, distracted. She was still crouched down, rubbing the same spot on her head but looking downward and around the landing. “…thing. Aha!” 

She lifted a paintbrush in the air triumphantly.

“Sorry to have bothered you,” she glanced over at Lexa again, not really making eye contact. “At ease, Private.”

That got her. Lexa looked surprised and her mouth opened to respond, but before she could,

“The dog tags gave you away,” the girl said. “Anyway,” she said with a flick of the paintbrush and straightening up, “thanks. I guess.”

She started up the wrought iron steps, making metallic reverb noises with every step.

“It’s Captain, actually,” Lexa called out maybe a second or two too late. Peering a little too far out the window.

The girl turned back slightly, lowered her gaze to look directly at Lexa and gave her a small salute. Without another word stepped back through her own window.

Lexa sat down on the edge of her bed and stared at nothing for a few seconds, replaying that interaction in her mind. She wasn’t sure if it was something about the girl, or the paint in her hair, or the ungodly hour of the morning, but Lexa was just, agape. She let herself fall backwards onto her comforter, lifting both of her arms over her head. She took her glasses off and held them high above her messy pile of hair. She squinted briefly at the slight depression on her ceiling from that time she tried to fix a leak herself. She started ticking off items in her never-ending to-do list and as she was trying to decide if she should go see Aiden today, she closed her eyes and, for once, drifted into a thick fog of sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Clarke’s consciousness has a habit of coming sharply into focus when she’s in the middle of something enjoyable. People– er, Raven, call it mindfulness, but Clarke disagrees. She knows it’s her brain being acutely aware. Aware of everything. Sounds, smells, touch, sights, even the most minuscule of detail, Clarke picks up with almost inhuman abilities. It’s a superpower only accessed in the most intense of moments.

She was in it, so deep in it, that she didn’t even notice the hours of the night tick on and away. She’d been stuck on a particular light study for a few days now, which was unlike her. She tossed the detailed canvas aside and set up a brand new one on the big easel by the window. She tossed up the window pane and let in the evening’s breeze. It smelled like the musty, mossy scent of the park, combined with the soft waft of the garlic bread from the pizza place below. She took a deep breath and looked down at her palette.

She’d been on a realism kick lately, and it had really started to wear her down. Raven, her mom, even Monroe had asked her about it at some point. It was strange to see Clarke labor over a 12 inch canvas for weeks at a time, making sure every single hair’s shadow was in place. It had almost been a year of this nonsense and Clarke had only three, albeit impeccable, likenesses to show for it.

But tonight felt a little different. The air was heavy with nostalgia and her senses were heavy. She looked at the big blank canvas and could feel that prickle of possibility stretch from the nape of her neck to her left hand. It itched for paint, for big globs of color and big arching shapes.

She took a second to hit play on the most ancient of stereo systems that took up residence in the corner of her studio. It was a frankenmonster of CD player parts, LP turntables and two cassette players; a Raven Reyes original. Clarke loved it because it played all of her dad’s old mix tapes. This one in particular was her favorite, because it had a couple of songs that he had written and sung for her mom. Abby couldn’t listen to them anymore without crying so she gave them to Clarke, who knew them by heart, and sang along with the voice that lulled her to sleep for so many years. She walked over and pressed down, hard, on the play button above the cassette player. She loved the mechanical feel beneath her finger, the shifting of gears and bands, and the sound of the tape turning over. That bit was her favorite. The music started and she turned back to her canvas.

“Okay, baby,” she said to the blank space in front of her. “I’m coming for you.”

She grabbed a tube of her favorite blue acrylic and spread a large glob of it onto her palette. She did the same with the white, the yellow and the really nice ochre her mom had gotten her from that an art store in Nairobi. Clarke still had the package it came in, enamored with all the colorful stamps that decorated its wrappings.

She swirled and smoothed out her paint colors carefully. She chose her favorite two brushes from the cup next to the easel and got to work. There was something in the air that night, that called out for bold strokes, that begged for strong vibrant colors and inspired Clarke’s most impressionistic instincts. She was a alone in the studio but her head was crowded with words, memories, feelings, senses. She smoothed out a patch of bright turquoise and felt the cool comfort of her dad. The way his shirts smelled, the raspy tone of her voice. Her mom was that swath of orange next to it, bold and determined – calling attention to everything around her. She was definite, strong and unstoppable. 

She spent hours combing through sensory memories in her brain while she painted, she was careful to inspire each stroke with a breadth of strength and decisiveness. At one point she kicked the stool away from the easel and kept going on foot. She didn’t stop until the dawn was breaking.

The studio grew brighter and her lamps grew dimmer. Every brush stroke on this canvas was ideally placed, Clarke knew that for the first time in a long time. The tape had turned over and stopped playing hours ago, and she hadn’t had time to change it. She had been wrapped in memories of her life, and now that it was morning she had to break free of it all. 

She took a step back from the canvas and stretched her arms out. Her hand still clutching her brush as if she had won an arduous battle and that was her sword. She took a deep breath and 

_BRRRRRRR–IIIIIIIING!!!_

The door buzzer scared her so badly she tossed the paintbrush directly across the room and clear out the window. She listened as it clattered all the way down the fire escape.

Fuck.

_BRRRRRRR–IIIIIIIING!!!_

The buzzer rang again. 

She made her way over to the voice box and pressed down on the button.

“Yeah,” she said into it, not sure who would be at her door at five in the morning.

“Clarke it’s your mother,” a voice said.

“Nice try, asshole,” Clarke said back, and buzzed them in.

Now, about that brush.


End file.
